Bringing Balance to the Force

The latest version of the X-Wing™ FAQ is now online! This update contains the usual clarifications, streamlined rules, and other useful information—including Wave X updates—for those that want to know the finer details of the rules. In addition, today’s update includes multiple errata that tournament players should be sure to check out. Read why these changes were made from the developers themselves below!

The X-Wing Developers

The X-Wing development team is excited to release FAQ Version 4.3.0, an update that contains several clarifying errata to the Rules Reference, four errata to existing cards, and a number of additional clarifications to both. As always, these clarifications are intended to give players insight into the finer points of X-Wing’s rules and help the game run more smoothly at the table.

Opportunity to Attack

The update to the Simultaneous Attack Rule on page 3 of the FAQ removes the term “opportunity to attack” to clarify the circumstances under which ships are actually removed when using this rule. Now, when the Simultaneous Attack Rule comes into play, the ship is simply removed after activating during the Combat phase, with the additional allowance that before it is removed, it can resolve any abilities that trigger after performing an attack.

Resolving Simultaneous Effects

This update also contains information on how to resolve an effect against multiple ships. When an effect would affect multiple ships, each instance of the effect is resolved separately. The player who controls the effect chooses the order in which the ships are affected. For instance,
"Chopper"
(Ship card) reads “At the start of the Combat phase, each enemy ship you are touching receives 1 stress token.” When this effect occurs, if “Chopper” is touching multiple ships, the player with "Chopper" decides the order in which the ships receive the stress.

If a player has an effect that would trigger additional effects, the player resolves the entirety of one instance of the original effect—and any subsequent effects that trigger from that instance—before resolving the other instances of the original effect. Therefore, if “Chopper” was touching both
Soontir Fel
and
Darth Vader,
the player who controls “Chopper" would choose an order for them to receive the stress (Soontir Fel then Darth Vader, for instance). In the example, Soontir Fel would receive a stress, and Soontir Fel’s ability (“When you receive a stress token, you may assign 1 focus token to your ship.”) would trigger, giving Soontir Fel’s player a chance to assign 1 focus token to Soontir Fel. Once that occurred, Darth Vader would then receive 1 stress token.

Card Errata

The card errata found in FAQ Version 4.3.0 are updates for balance, intended to help foster diverse and interesting options for competitive tier X-Wing squads. To this effect, the Manaroo Pilot card and the
Emperor Palpatine
,
TIE/x7
and
Zuckuss
upgrade cards all have updates to the wordings of their abilities. Overall, these changes reflect an effort to introduce risk into abilities that previously provided powerful rewards without careful assessment on the part of the player using them.

Manaroo

Manaroo
has been an extremely potent addition to the Scum & Villainy faction. While we are happy with her inclusion in many squads, certain ways of using Manaroo have provided too much reward with too little risk. Because Manaroo grants her benefit at any range, one such strategy involves taking Manaroo out of the fight entirely, using the JumpMaster 5000’s speed to avoid fighting while providing tokens to other ships that engage directly. While support ships obviously have a role in X-Wing, ships that actively avoid interacting with the larger battle tend to reduce interesting choices for the players and make for less engaging matches.

As such, the change to Manaroo is simple; her ability now reads “At the start of the Combat phase, you may assign all focus, evade, and target lock tokens assigned to you to another friendly ship at Range 1.” The addition of the range limit means that Manaroo must maneuver around the vicinity of the battle rather than providing benefits from a far corner of the board. Manaroo’s effect is still very potent, but will now require a greater degree of risk on the part of the player, and allow for more reactive play by the opponent.

Emperor Palpatine

Emperor Palpatine is a staple of Imperial squads, and for good reason. There are many means of controlling randomness in X-Wing, but the sheer versatility and reliability of Emperor Palpatine’s effect is unmatched. At eight squad points and two Crew upgrade slots, he certainly needs to be powerful, but his ubiquity in Imperial squads has become a source of concern that the ability is crowding out other options. Additionally, Emperor Palpatine contributes to an escalation of defensive abilities that, when stacked, allow for ships with a high Agility value to guarantee a certain amount of damage mitigation every round. As with Manaroo, the reward is high but the risk is low, making Emperor Palpatine an easy choice for many squads.

The update to Emperor Palapatine is small but substantial, and the card now reads: “Once per round, before a friendly ship rolls dice, you may name a die result. After rolling, you must change 1 of its dice results to the named result. That die result cannot be modified again.” Especially when rolling only one or two dice, this change means that deciding to activate Emperor Palpatine is a substantial investment, rather than an ability that can almost always be used when it will help the most. Fittingly, now that the choice to use the power or save it must be made in advance, overconfidence can be Emperor Palpatine’s undoing.

TIE/x7

The TIE/x7 Title upgrade has brought the TIE Defender to the competitive scene, giving the ship a much-needed increase in potency. However, this title has proven to be another upgrade that pays out a powerful effect without an accompanying risk or opportunity for reactive play by the opponent. Thus, as part of this update, the TIE/x7 card’s text is changing as follows: “After executing a 3-, 4-, or 5-speed maneuver, if you did not overlap an obstacle or ship, you may perform a free evade action.”

With the added clause preventing it from receiving the token after overlapping a ship or obstacle, a TIE Defender with the TIE/x7 Title must now fly more carefully to gain its benefits. More importantly, canny players can limit its access to additional evade tokens through blocking and use of clever feints. Further, now that it is allowed an evade action rather than simply being assigned a token, a TIE Defender with TIE/x7 equipped can still lose out on this benefit if it is stressed. This opens up further ways for opponents to chip away at its defenses with abilities that apply stress and makes debris clouds that much more dangerous to TIE Defenders.

Zuckuss

Zuckuss is the last of the errata updates in this FAQ, and this change comes about for much the same reasons as the others in Version 4.3.0: too much reliability at too little cost. This Upgrade is enabled by a number of other cards (including Manaroo, even with the modest change to that Pilot card) that allow a ship with Zuckuss to function at full capacity even while stressed. Thus, the change to Zuckuss is very simple: “When attacking, if you are not stressed, you may receive any number of stress tokens to choose an equal number of defense dice. The defender must reroll those dice."

By requiring the ship with Zuckuss to be unstressed, the choice of using Zuckuss is now a much more meaningful decision, as is choosing how many dice Zuckuss will reroll. Having an enemy ship reroll multiple defense dice is now much more costly, as it not only comes with the stress, but potentially prevents future uses of Zuckuss for multiple turns. In all, this change means that Zuckuss is still a powerful asset at 1 point, but requires more strategic use.

Download the new X-Wing FAQ now to read the entire update. If you are someone who plays in tournaments, don’t forget to read all of the errata! They are sure to alter what you have come to expect in competitions.

As always, game rules, tournament regulations, and other support materials for X-Wing can be found on our X-Wing page.